9 days -- STORM SURGE: Sandy could scramble race -- HUGE ROMNEY DAY: Rises in Ohio poll -- D.M. Register goes R for first time in 40 yrs. -- 1A of Tampa Times: 'may be over for Obama' in Fla.

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MORNING MINDMELD: The October Surprise turns out to be a superstorm with the deceptively placid name of Sandy, raising the possibility of another asterisk election if power is out for much of the final week, or even on Election Day, in key parts of Virginia and/or Ohio. Just the frenzy around the forecast could disrupt this week’s early voting, which probably hurts President Obama. But he also has an opportunity to be seen as president -- a commander-in-chief moment. So no one’s sure, but it’s a huge topic in Boston and Chicago. Here is the take from some of the smartest people in politics:

A top Democrat: “Anything that disrupts campaign/candidate schedules at this point in the race is significant. These events are important to the campaigns as a way of activating and energizing voters (even more important in early voting states). The earned media pieces can be made up in other ways (satellite interviews, etc.), but there is no substitute for candidate travel. …

“Also, nothing galvanizes attention or sucks up more media bandwidth than a major weather event. The storm led all of the networks news broadcasts for the last three days and will do so for the next three, at least. I guess the net-net of that is that it helps freeze or solidify the race in place. If you believe that the President maintains a narrow but statistically important lead in the battleground states, anything that prevents Romney from getting traction or changing the dynamic is potentially important.”

A Romney official: “The storm will help the Prez appear presidential but it's too late to move enough voters.” An Obama official: “We remain confident in our ability to get our voters to the polls by Election Day. We had a big day on Saturday as in-person early voting started in Florida, with record turnout, and we expect that strong progress will continue … into the week.”

A Republican deeply involved in the campaign says that (literally) freezing the race may help Romney because “it diverts press attention [at a time when he has been portrayed as surging], but so much seems to be happening below radar now it might not matter.”

Most clever take: "Anyone who thinks they currently know who it helps/hurts is just making [stuff] up. This gives Chris Christie an opportunity to show leadership, and thereby help his reelect and [helps him] for 2016; unless it curtails Obama's [get-out-the-vote] operation in Virginia, in which case it helps Romney; unless it enables Obama to lead an effective federal government response, in which case it helps Obama; unless it takes Obama off the trail in Ohio, in which case it helps Romney."

And a mischievous friend makes a devil’s-advocate argument that it helps Romney: “Republicans are more motivated to vote than Dems. … Low turnout favors Romney. The storm can do nothing but depress turnout in places like Virginia and Ohio. And even Pennsylvania. People emerging from a week of no power on Nov. 6 are going to be in a grumpy, foul mood -- not the kind of mood that screams ‘vote incumbent.’”

--YOUR TURN: What do your experience and intel suggest about the potential Sandy effect? Please send your thoughts to mallen@politico.com, and we’ll share the best insights tomorrow.

--CANDIDATES CANCEL – AP: “Romney's campaign said it was canceling scheduled Virginia appearances Sunday at Haymarket, about 35 miles west of Washington, D.C., and in Richmond. Also, The White House said President Barack Obama would be returning to Washington to monitor Sandy's progress after an event in Ohio and thus cancelling a planned northern Virginia event. Obama had planned to attend a rally Monday in Prince William County with former President Bill Clinton. Romney's campaign had already canceled its rally [today] in Virginia Beach … Biden scrapped a Virginia Beach event Saturday.”

--STEPHANIE CUTTER to George Stephanopoulos, at top of ABC’s “This Week”: “[O]f course, we're all hoping that the hurricane doesn't have huge consequences for people's safety. We've taken every precaution that we possibly can. The president took down a couple of stops so that he could be at the White House to monitor the situation. And, of course, he's … given every resource he can to state and local partners to ensure that people are safe.”

--JAY CARNEY statement, 10 p.m.: “On Monday, following the event in Youngstown, OH, the President will return to the White House to continue to monitor Hurricane Sandy, which is currently forecasted to make landfall along the Eastern seaboard late that day. As a result, the events in Northern Virginia on Monday and in Colorado Springs on Tuesday have been cancelled. …

“The President is being regularly updated on the storm and ongoing preparations, and he has directed his team to continue to bring all available resources to bear as state and local partners continue to prepare for the storm. FEMA has already deployed teams and has pre-staged resources to potentially affected states and areas ahead of the storm, and FEMA remains in close contact with emergency responders in states up and down the East coast to ensure there are no unmet needs. The President will continue to receive regular briefings on these efforts, and has made clear that he expects his team to continue to lean forward as Hurricane Sandy approaches.”

--Newt Gingrich, to Stephanopoulos: “You'll notice he's canceling his trips over the hurricane. He did not cancel his trips over Benghazi. And so you have to wonder, between Benghazi, the price of gasoline, and unemployment, just how much burden the president's going to carry into this last week. ...
I think [Romney's] actually going to end up winning around 53-47.”

THE BIG PICTURE -- Stephanopoulos: “Can Obama's swing state firewall stand up to Romney's momentum? … [Ohio poll out today] shows Governor Romney coming on very strong in that state that matters so much. It looks like a real threat to [Obama's] firewall.”

--George Will, on "This Week" roundtable, re the two sides: "Both are bluffing, because no one knows at this point. What we do know is that the trends for the last three weeks or so favor Mr. Romney. And so the question is, what will interrupt that trend, if anything? Who knows?"

BULLETIN – Reuters: “New York City will suspend train, subway and bus service tonight ahead of Hurricane Sandy, which is expected to bring strong winds and dangerous flooding to the East Coast, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said … The service is expected to resume operations about 12 hours after the storm ends.” AP: “Cuomo says subways and trains will be suspended starting at 7 p.m. Sunday and buses at 9 p.m. … The subway alone has a daily ridership of more than 5 million.”

--AFP: “Hundreds of flights to New York airports canceled.”

--THE SCOPE -- AP: “Megastorm could wreak havoc across 800 miles of US … will afflict a third of the country with sheets of rain, high winds and heavy snow … ‘We're looking at impact of greater than 50 to 60 million people,’ said Louis Uccellini, head of environmental prediction for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. …

--JERSEY SHORE is a possible landfall – AP: “The storm was expected to continue moving parallel to the Southeast coast most of [today] and approach the coast of the mid-Atlantic states by Monday night, before reaching southern New England later in the week. The storm was so big, however, … that ‘we just can't pinpoint who is going to get the worst of it," said Rick Knabb, director of the National Hurricane Center in Miami.”

FLORIDA – Lead story of Tampa Bay Times, “I-4 vote going to Romney, poll says: Given the importance of the corridor in state voting, it may be over for Obama in Florida,” by Political Editor Adam C. Smith: “An exclusive Tampa Bay Times/Bay News 9 poll of likely voters along the Interstate 4 corridor [Tampa to Orlando to Dayton] finds Romney leading Obama 51 percent to 45 percent, with 4 percent undecided. ‘Romney has pretty much nailed down Florida,’ said Brad Coker of Mason-Dixon Polling and Research, which conducted the poll for the Times and its media partners. ‘Unless something dramatically changes — an October surprise, a major gaffe — Romney's going to win Florida.’” http://bit.ly/Vwy55F

OHIO – The Columbus Dispatch, banner, “Romney closes Obama’s lead to split Ohio,” by Darrel Rowland: “Boosted by a surge among male voters who think he’s the best candidate to fix the economy, Republican Mitt Romney has come back to tie President Barack Obama in battleground Ohio. They are deadlocked at 49 percent in a new Dispatch/Ohio News Organization poll. Obama was ahead by 5 points in the same poll published on Sept. 16.” http://bit.ly/SqqxmF

--Stephanie Cutter, to Stephanopoulos: “[T]hat's one poll. There have been several polls out this week, one … that showed us up 5 in Ohio. We feel pretty good about where we are on the ground there. In many cases, we're beating Mitt Romney 3 to 1 in the early vote. Our people are turning out, and they're turning out in very high numbers. We feel good about Ohio. We think we're going to win it.”

VIRGINIA --WashPost top of A1 still calls Romney “surging” -- “Obama maintains dwindling lead in Virginia poll,” By Amy Gardner and Scott Clement: “Obama is clinging to a slender four-point lead over Republican Mitt Romney in Virginia as both sides ramp up already aggressive campaigns in the crucial battleground state, according to a new Washington Post poll. Obama outpolled Romney, 51 to 47 percent, among likely Virginia voters, although he lost the clearer 52-to-44 percent advantage he held in mid-September. Unlike in the Washington Post-ABC News national tracking poll, Obama still has an edge when Virginia voters are asked who better understands people’s financial problems, and he has not fallen behind a surging Romney on the question of who would better handle the national economy.

“Nor has Obama lost significant ground among self-identified independents in Virginia, as he has nationally. … Perhaps the poll’s most striking insight concerns the many voters the two campaigns have contacted in Virginia this fall. A staggering 44 percent of likely voters polled said they had been contacted by the Obama campaign; 41 percent said the same of Romney’s. More than one in four had heard from both campaigns.” http://wapo.st/VwzObb

IOWA -- DES MOINES REGISTER, the dominant news organization in the crucial swing state of Iowa, endorses the Republican nominee for first time since President Nixon in 1972: “Our discussion repeatedly circled back to the nation’s single most important challenge: pulling the economy out of the doldrums, getting more Americans back in the workforce in meaningful jobs with promising futures, and getting the federal government on a track to balance the budget in a bipartisan manner that the country demands. Which candidate could forge the compromises in Congress to achieve these goals? When the question is framed in those terms, Mitt Romney emerges the stronger candidate.” http://dmreg.co/PdFzML

--Tomorrow’s N.Y. Times foretold: endorsement switches! Poynter Institutes’s Caitlin Johnson: “The Register joins five other papers -- including the Orlando Sentinel and South Florida Sun Sentinel -- to flip its support from Obama in 2008 to Romney in 2012, giving the GOP nominee the lead in Swing State newspaper endorsements.” http://bit.ly/To80rP

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BEST, WORST ADS: One more day to send your suggestions on this cycle’s best and worst ads – the debut topic of "The Winner Is," a daily video by Jim VandeHei and Playbook, arguing about some of the cycle's winners and losers that can already be gamed out. Please send your thoughts to PoliticoWinner@gmail.com, or tweet us at #PoliticoWinner. Operatives are welcome to submit their own ads: Just please include data/insight about why effective or pioneering.

OK, WE GET IT – Only 2012 story on L.A. Times A1: “Women key in Virginia.”

--That makes Alex Burns wonder: Might turnout also be a factor?

SOUND FAMILIAR? AP’s “Presidential Campaign: State of Play” story for Sunday papers: “Momentum vs. math in election's final full week.”

--Glenn Thrush and Jonathan Martin lead last Monday, on each campaign’s theory of the case: “It’s momentum vs. the map.”

GOOGLE SUGGESTS: When you type in “ken buck tea party,” the first suggestion that drops down is “ken buck tea party dumbasses.”

PUNDIT PREP -- L.A. Times, lead of Sat. second front, “Obama’s star dims with state’s voters: A poll shows him comfortably ahead of … Romney, but by a less dramatic margin than in 2008,” by Seema Mehta: “[T]he president is unlikely to repeat his historic 2008 margin of victory here because of his diminished power to pull in people who don’t traditionally support Democrats, according to the USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll. The drop in appeal across party and demographic lines has translated … to a 14-point edge over [Romney ]among likely voters— well below Obama’s 24- point victory in 2008, the biggest margin in modern times. …

“In 2008, Obama won male voters by 18 percentage points over … McCain; he currently leads Romney by 1 point among likely male voters. Among white men, Obama beat McCain by two percentage points; Romney now leads among them by 17 points.”

RUBIO DAUGHTER INJURED MEDIAWATCH – Statement from his office: “Amanda Rubio, the oldest daughter of Senator Marco Rubio, was injured in an accident [Sat.] afternoon. While visiting with classmates, she was a passenger on a golf cart involved in a collision in a private gated community. She was airlifted to Miami Children's Hospital with a head injury. She has been admitted to the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit. She is in fair condition. Senator and Mrs. Rubio are grateful for all the outpouring of support and prayers. The Rubios are touched and grateful for calls from President Obama and Vice President Biden, and Governor Romney's personal message.”

MEDIAWATCH: Margaret Sullivan, N.Y. Times public editor, raised the possibility last week that the installation of Mark Thompson, former head of the BBC, as president and CEO of The New York Times Co., scheduled to take place Nov. 12, could be disrupted by an unfolding BBC scandal in which a now-dead star is accused of serial abuse of children. Today, a bombshell:

--The (London) Sunday Times lead story, “Savile trail leads to BBC boss’s office,” Miles Goslett and James Gillespie: “THE office of Mark Thompson, the former director-general of the BBC, was alerted at least twice to claims that Jimmy Savile had abused children, The Sunday Times can reveal. The revelation raises fresh questions about what Thompson, who left the BBC last month, knew about a Newsnight investigation into claims that Savile had abused minors on BBC premises and elsewhere. … Police are preparing to arrest a number of people who worked with Savile. So far, 300 people have contacted police claiming to be victims and about 130 of these have been questioned. A further 114 assault claims have been made. …

“Thompson, who is to become chief executive of The New York Times next month, has said he was neither ‘notified nor briefed’ on details of the Newsnight investigation. … However, The Sunday Times has established that the director-general’s office was formally alerted twice more, once in May and again in September. On both occasions his aides were told that the allegations concerned Savile’s abuse of minors on BBC premises.” Behind pay wall

SPORTS BLINK – COLLEGE FOOTBALL – “Down they go: Gators, Trojans, unbeatens fall” – AP roundup: “All sorts of ambitions came crashing down in a handful of Top 25 upsets on Saturday, none more costly than No. 3 Florida's loss to Georgia. The 12th-ranked Bulldogs stuffed the Gators, handing Florida its first loss of the season and damaging its chances of making the SEC title game, let alone the BCS title game. Southern California's national title hopes took another hit when it was upset in the desert. New Arizona coach Rich Rodriguez got a signature win of the sort that mostly eluded him at Michigan, bumping off the Trojans 39-36 thanks to a huge day by quarterback Matt Scott.

“There were more losses for undefeated teams as the day wore on, including a pair of surprising victories for the Mid-American Conference. No. 18 Rutgers was beaten at home by Kent State and No. 23 Ohio lost to archrival Miami of Ohio across the state in Oxford. Those games burst the bubble on promising seasons for programs looking for a spot in the BCS chase. No. 7 Oregon State and No. 13 Mississippi State also lost.”

--COLLEGE BASKETBALL – AP Basketball Writer Jim O’Connell: “Indiana was ranked No. 1 in The Associated Press' preseason Top 25, a first for the Hoosiers since 1979-80, when they were coached by Bob Knight and the 3-point line was still in the experimental phase. The … next two teams in the voting: Louisville and Kentucky. The three schools are from the basketball-rabid area known as ‘Kentuckiana.’ Nos. 1, 2 and 3 are all within an easy drive of each other and they are schools which have known basketball success over the years and recently.” Georgetown got 9 votes, but finished out of the Top 25. Full listhttp://bit.ly/SqggH0

** A message from NEI: 100,000. That’s the number of jobs supported by the nuclear energy industry. And with our electricity needs expected to grow 22% by 2035, advanced nuclear energy plants must be built. Global and domestic growth in the nuclear energy industry is adding thousands of long term jobs for American workers. Construction of four advanced reactors right now in Georgia and South Carolina will create 5,000 well-paying construction jobs at each project and hundreds of millions of dollars in economic growth. With more than 65 reactors under construction worldwide, the growing global nuclear industry continues to create American jobs in 25 states. Nuclear: Clean Air Energy. Visit http://NEI.org/jobs to learn more. **

Readers' Comments (2)

The Romulans have been trying to spin a "surge" for the last week, just like McCain did when polls tightened in the last week in the 2008 election.

For those interested in facts and not spin, and not suffering from Romnesia, the Ohio poll was conducted October 18-23, essentially prior to Debate #3.

And check out Nate Silver.

http://fivethirtyeight....

1. "On the other hand, there was not a single instance in the database where a candidate lost a state when he held a lead of more than 3.5 points in the polling average at this point in time." Washington Post has Obama up by 4 points.

2. Ohio: "In Ohio, however, there are not just three polls: roughly a dozen polling firms, rather, have surveyed the state over the past 10 days....

There are no precedents in the database for a candidate losing with a two- or three-point lead in a state when the polling volume was that rich....

It is misinformed to refer to Ohio as a toss-up. Mr. Obama is the favorite there, and because of Ohio’s central position in the Electoral College, he is therefore the overall favorite in the election."

You talk about an October surprise. How about this little puppy!???? Obama Curtails Drilling in Oil-Rich Alaskan Reserve The Obama administration, citing environmental concerns, has banned drilling on half of the vast National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska in a move decried even by Alaska’s congressional delegation. “The price of gasoline, which was $1.84 a gallon the day President Obama took office, has more than doubled since, willfully aided and abetted by an administration that claims we can't drill our way to energy independence as we ignore vast reserves of North American energy that dwarf OPEC's and we sit on 100 years' supply of petroleum,” Investor’s Business Daily (IBD) stated in an editorial. The National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPRA), not to be confused with the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to the east, is a 23.5-million-acre, Indiana-d tract on Alaska’s North Slope. It was established by President Harding in 1923 to ensure oil supplies for the U.S. Navy. The desolate NPRA has been described as the largest tract of undisturbed public land in the United States and includes a point 120 miles from the nearest village or usable road. In 1976, the reserve was transferred to the Interior Department and Congress designated it as a strategic oil and natural gas stockpile to meet the “energy needs of the nation.” But in August, Obama’s Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced that new drilling would be allowed on half of the reserve while the other half will be off-limits to oil and gas exploration. Environmentalists had lobbied to protect the habitat of caribou, eider ducks and other Arctic species. “The move drew praise from environmentalists but sharp criticism from oil and gas proponents who said it would restrict the industry’s ability to tap the nation’s hydrocarbon resources,” the Washington Post reported. The off-limits portions of the reserve are “the most productive areas” of a tract that IBD says contains 2.7 billion barrels of oil and 114 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. Alaska’s congressional delegation — Sens. Mark Begich (a Democrat) and Lisa Murkowski, and Rep. Don Young — call the administration’s action “the largest wholesale land withdrawal and blocking of access to an energy resource by the federal government in decades.” They also said the move “will significantly limit options for a pipeline” through the reserve to transport oil and gas. Erik Milito, the American Petroleum Institute’s group director of upstream and industry operations, said the plan “continues to leave domestic energy resources, jobs and government revenue off the table.” IBD concludes: “The move is typical Obama sleight of hand: Take credit for increased oil production on public lands that you had nothing to do with, lock up resources on federal lands with the exception of places the oil companies find unprofitable or unpromising, then blame them, not your administration, for driving up prices.”

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Send to a friend9 days -- STORM SURGE: Sandy could scramble race -- HUGE ROMNEY DAY: Rises in Ohio poll -- D.M. Register goes R for first time in 40 yrs. -- 1A of Tampa Times: 'may be over for Obama' in Fla.